news
and commentpolitics

the anger of the left - the war on the individualsubmitted by The FACE that lunched on a thousand planets

“The difference between socialism and fascism is superficial and
purely formal.[...] under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense
of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal.[...]
If 'ownership' means the right to determine the use and disposal of
material goods, then Nazism endowed the state with every real
prerogative of ownership. What the individual retained was merely a
formal deed, a contentless deed, which conferred no rights on its
holder. Under communism, there is collective ownership of property
_de jure_. Under Nazism, there is the same collective ownership
_de facto_” [Ayn Rand (Lexicon 159, 161)]

“Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and
for all.” [Nikita Khrushchev]

“All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the
elevation of the single person.” [Vladimir Lenin]

“There is the great, silent, continuous struggle: the struggle between the
State and the Individual.” [Benito Mussolini]

“The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the
liberalistic concept of the individual” [Adolph Hitler]

“At a time when our entire country is banding together and facing down
individualism, the Patriots set a wonderful example, showing us all what is
possible when we work together, believe in each other, and sacrifice for
the greater good.” [Ted Kennedy]

“We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is
best for society.” [Hillary Clinton, 1993]

“[...] Bush, in an interview with Reuters, said he doubted there could be
an effective approach to dealing with climate change globally without
the participation of major polluters China and India.

“The leaders of the United States, Britain, Russia, Canada, Japan and
Italy meet on June 6-8 in the Baltic resort town of Heligendamm,
Germany, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has put climate change
high on the agenda.

“Asked if he expected an agreement to come out of the summit, Bush
said: "Too early to tell right now. I would hope so. I hope we can
reach an agreement on some basic principles ... I think we can reach
agreement on principles."

“He said he wanted to work with the Europeans, Chinese and Indians to
come up with a way forward that reduces greenhouse gasses blamed for
global warming without endangering economic growth and promotes
environmentally conscious technologies.” [Quoted from planetark.org]

And for those dinosaurs who read and believe the leftist fossil media.
From June 2001:

“Good morning. I've just met with senior members of my administration
who are working to develop an effective and science-based approach to
addressing the important issues of global climate change.
[President Bush makes a statement about global climate change on
Monday, June 11 at the White House.]

“This is an issue that I know is very important to the nations of
Europe, which I will be visiting for the first time as President. The
earth's well-being is also an issue important to America. And it's an
issue that should be important to every nation in every part of our
world.

“The issue of climate change respects no border. Its effects cannot be
reined in by an army nor advanced by any ideology. Climate change,
with its potential to impact every corner of the world, is an issue
that must be addressed by the world.

“The Kyoto Protocol was fatally flawed in fundamental ways. But the
process used to bring nations together to discuss our joint response
to climate change is an important one. That is why I am today
committing the United States of America to work within the United
Nations framework and elsewhere to develop with our friends and allies
and nations throughout the world an effective and science-based
response to the issue of global warming.” [Quoted from whitehouse.gov]

“President Sarkozy yesterday appointed as Foreign Minister a socialist
rights crusader who backed the US-British invasion of Iraq" [...]

“The Socialist Opposition, in whose governments Dr Kouchner had served
as Minister for Health and Humanitarian Action, immediately denounced
him as a traitor and expelled him from the party.

“Dr Kouchner, a 1968 student activist, has dedicated his career to
humanitarian relief in war zones since he co-founded the Medecins sans
Frontieres organisation after working in Biafra in 1971. He is best
known for developing the theory of "humanitarian intervention" to
justify international action against dictators who flout human rights.
In 2003 he was the only senior public figure in France to approve the
intervention in Iraq. A staunch pro-European, he will implement Mr
Sarkozy's promises to "oppose tyrants and dictators" and inject more
morality in France's dealings with the world.”

Chirac’s cowardice and complicity with regard to Saddam greatly
damaged France’s reputation and power. Sarkozy has now made it
clear that he recognizes the damage the idiot he follows did, and that
he is willing to fix the problem.

Chirac sent warships to cooperate with Chinese exercises off Taiwan,
designed to intimidate the democracy just before an election.

Both Sarkozy and his foreign minister say they want to threaten boycott of
the Beijing Olympics to pressure China over their support for the genocide in Darfur.

The world just keeps on improving. No wonder there are so many other-siders whining in the fossil media and elsewhere.

“While other European countries have decentralised, Britain has gone
the other way. In France, where the local mairie is a prominent
feature of every community, there are 37,000 units of local
administration; in Germany there are 16,000. In the United Kingdom
there are just 472. Whereas in France there are 116 electors to every
elected official, in Britain the ratio is 2,605:1. [From p.13 of Big Bang Localism] These figures come
from a pamphlet (Big Bang Localism: A Rescue Plan for British
Democracy) written for the Policy Exchange think-tank by Simon
Jenkins, the former editor of The Times. He observes that almost all
of Europe's governments realised back in the 1970s that they were
over-centralised and began a programme of reforms that handed most
public services to provincial, municipal and communal councils,
including housing, schools, public buildings and hospitals. By and
large, they work better than ours.

“Almost all Europeans now vote for local mayors and for two or three
tiers of local government. Who, visiting Continental towns and cities,
can fail to notice the civic pride and better services that this form
of local democracy has produced compared with our centralised,
creaking, target-laden system? There is another spin-off: because so
many decisions are taken locally - and money is raised locally rather
than being handed out by central government to grateful
forelock-tugging supplicants - the turn-out in community elections is
far higher and satisfaction with public services is commensurately
greater.”

The following is no bad description of the mechanics of socialism steadily destroying a society and economy.

“The targets were entirely top down and applied throughout the
public sector. They varied from the specific to the meaningless and
embraced the hilarious.Hospitals had targets for vaccination and for
cutting deaths from heart disease. Schools had targets for GCSEs, for
truants, for class sizes, for reading ages. Academics had targets for
scholarly output, with the Treasury at one point measuring the
numbers of pages written. Kew Gardens had a target to "receive
30,000 herbarium specimens a year". The Atomic Energy Authority
was targeted to "increase the proportion of favourable media
coverage by 43.9 per cent". The Meat and Livestock Commission was
charged with "maintaining the proportion of people saying they 'eat
as much meat as ever'." The Foreign Office had targets for global
"peace and stability" and for achieving "a step change in the UKís
relations with the rest of Europe". While the idea of an institutional
objective was understandable, there seemed no limit to its fatuity in
practice.” [pp.48-49]

“Nigel Lawson as Chancellor had famously demanded that the
Treasury have "a finger in pretty well every pie that the government
bakes". By 1999 Mr Blair had four fingers and a thumb. In his conference
speech that year he boasted that every local authority in Britain
had "500 clear, demanding targets" covering all public services. A
year later the office of his deputy, John Prescott, decided the total was
2,500, including 500 for transport alone. The Liberal Democrats
claimed the total was more like 6,000. Nor was this targetry just
indicative. Hilary Armstrong's Local Government Act 1999 introduced
draconian powers to enforce compliance with Best Value
targets. Her Clause 14 enabled the centre, by statutory instrument, to
vary or overrule anything that a local authority might do, the socalled
"Henry VIII" provision. Within two years there were 42 such
interventions in local education and social services alone.

“The Audit Commission became the Red Guards of what some
termed the Treasury's "Cultural Revolution". In the first four years of
Labour its costs rose from £80m to £130m, of which its local inspection
programme rose from £800,000 to £50m. The result was predictable.
Public administration obeyed Goodhart's Law, that any quantified
measure of service soon makes the measure the goal. Schools fixed
league tables by engineering admissions and exclusions. Hospitals engineered
mortality rates by refusing hard cases, and massaged their
waiting lists by concentrating on simple operations. The latter in 2003
led the Audit Commission to condemn "major breaches of public
50 Big Bang Localism trust". But it never blamed its own target culture. Told that crime would
be measured by the speed of response to 999 calls, the police increased
car speeds and killed hundreds more citizens as a result.” [pp.50-51]

no portillo - for all his faults, it was socialist johnny who made bliar

By seeing off the extremism of Pillock [Niel Kinnock] and [John] Smith, socialist Johnny [Major]
made it impossible for socialist Labour to go straight back into tax and spend, nationalisation and the usual Labour
destruction of the UK economy. It was also socialist Johnny who gave us socialism-lite and put the Tory party out of
power for a decade.

Certainly it is that process that has now finally made the removal of the socialist coup in the
Tory party possible. So yes, Michael Portillo is correct in claiming that Tony Bliar has now, by accident, reformed
the Tory party.

Now, with ‘a little bit of luck’, the Clown will finally finish off
socialism in the UK. If only the socialist coup in the (now falsely named) Liberal
Democrats can reclaim that party from the invaders. May be we can dream of finally seeing the end of Socialism in Britain.

“New Labour, they say, was Margaret Thatcher's greatest achievement.
By setting the course of British politics for nearly two decades she
forced her opponents away from unilateral nuclear disarmament and
obliged them to accept trade union reform, income tax no higher than
40%, the sale of council houses and privatisation. Last week, as Tony
Blair announced his departure from politics, it struck home that his
greatest success is the new Tory party.” [Quoted from timesonline.co.uk]

“there is a reason why i have been using this ridiculous, high-falutin language.” letwin

For those who still mistakenly imagine that Cameron is just another
empty shell like Bliar/Brown, here is the heart of Tory policy thinking.

It is chalk from cheese, and sets out the fundamental Tory distaste for
Bliar/Clown socialism.

Any person who can think clearly will realise the natural changes
in policy that this analysis prefigures.

It is not yet clarified in rhetoric for electioneering, but the
objectives are very clear. It is the usual choice between individual freedom and socialist
statist collectivism.

“There is a reason why I have been using this ridiculous, high-falutin
language.

“I want to make the point that ridiculous high-falutin language is not
the sole prerogative of Gordon Brown with his post neo-classical
endogenous growth theory [...]

“Nor of David Miliband with his "emphasis on the value of equality and
solidarity...supplemented by renewed commitment to the extension of
personal autonomy in an increasingly interdependent world".

“You shouldn't think that, just because someone uses complicated words,
they have a coherent theory. And you shouldn't think that, just
because someone tries, most of the time to speak in plain English,
they don't have a theory.

“Cameron Conservatives have a strong attachment to plain English. That
is because we think that it is easier to think clearly in clear
language. But this has misled some people who think that theories come
in complicated language to think we haven't got one.

“And my point is that, despite our general preference for plain
language, we do have a theory. It can be expressed (as I have just
expressed it) in complicated language. It can also be expressed (as I
am about to do) in much simpler terms.”
—
“And as a recent report from UNICEF showed - a report which put Britain
at the bottom of the international league table for the well-being of
children - it's not that Britain is the sick man of Europe; we're
becoming the sick family of Europe...The mission of the modern
Conservative Party, could not be clearer. It is to bring about
Britain's social revival: to improve the quality of life for everyone
in our country, increasing our well-being, not just our wealth.”
—
“The provision-theory accepts the free market as the engine of economic
growth. But, just as Clause 4 socialism once saw the state as the
proper provider of goods and services through ownership of the means
of production, so the provision-theorists of Brownian New Labour see
the state as the proper provider of public services and of well-being
through direction and control.

“The tell-tale marks of provision-theory are to be seen in much of the
record of the last ten years - the targets and directives, the
reorganisations, schemes and initiatives. Direct government
intervention has been brought - with the best of intentions, though
often with notable lack of practical success - to bear on schools and
hospitals, police officers and neighbourhoods, local authorities and
universities [...]

“The state has been seen as the source of enlightened social action,
just as it was once seen as the source of enlightened economic action.”
—
“The first intuition is that human enterprise, initiative, vocation and
morale are the things that lead to progress and sustainable success in
the socio-environmental sphere, just as in the economic sphere. The
second, allied intuition is that command and control systems
eventually fall under their own weight because they stifle enterprise,
initiative, vocation and morale.

“And the third intuition is that a framework which leads people to
internalise their social responsibilities and to fulfil those
responsibilities of their own volition in their own ways is
accordingly a much more powerful engine for sustained
socio-environmental success than direct government control.” [Quoted from conservatives.com]

“While Blair has narrowed the gap between Labour and David Cameronís
Conservatives to four points, down from eight a month ago, it widens
to 10 when people are asked how they would vote with Brown as leader.
Under these circumstances Labour drops to 32% and the Tories rise from
38% to 42%.

“Brown, more than Blair, appears to be picking up the backlash of voter
disappointment. By 58% to 17% people think Britain is a worse place to
live than 10 years ago, and by 37% to 33% they say their living
standards have fallen.

“Brown also suffers in comparison with Blair. By 50% to 31% people say
they do not like him, and by 35% to 32% that he will not be a good
representative of Britain abroad. Blair scored well on both counts.” [Quoted from timesonline.co.uk]

Yes, both articles are talking about the same poll. You’ll have to get to
paragraph 6 of the Groaniad nonsense to find out it is referring to the Times poll.

In the debate between French presidential candidates Segolene Royale
an Nicholas Sarkosy earlier this week, Segolene Royale gave a fine prima
donna’s performance of self-righteous indignation. She also showed
her underbelly of temper and lack of control.

After all, Sago’s anger is ‘righteous’
and her lies are in pursuit of offering hersuperior
religion to the French people and the eagerly
awaiting world.
You must understand that she cares and caring trumps
intelligence or coherent planning every time.

These people are utterly convinced they know better,
that is, they know better than you what is good for you.
That gives them the imperative to ‘enlighten’ you. They are
only doing it for your own good. How else will you be saved?

Socialists have to be ignorant. It
means they can present theories without reality, and even believe them
while doing it.

Sago actually believes if everyone were only made equal,
everyone would be ‘happy’ campers. What people like Sago do
not understand is that dumb people have a natural inclination to freeload.

People like Segolene,despite being rich as most of
these socialist politicians are, believe you can improve the world by
taking the earnings of the producers and giving it to the chavs.

People like Nicholas Sarkozy know that the chavs will
not work unless they are forced, for instance, forced
by virtue of starving if they don’t work, but that is being ‘nasty’.

Sago wants desperately to be ‘nice’. Socialists
are incredibly naive, but they absolutely know they are
correct and that everyone else is wrong wrong wrong.

As the socialist religion does not work because of
factors in the real world, when it does not work, as it will not, that
must be someone’s fault, and most certainly not the fault of any
socialist.It must be the fault of people who tell the socialists they‘re
wrong, and the people who get better off by working.

Therefore, force is required.
Therefore, socialists must apply the force.

Ho hum.....

Anything but face reality.
Anything but back down.
Even worse is the awful problem that socialists inevitably
cause real and serious damage. Violence is a predictable response to
avoiding facing that reality.

Socialism is a very dangerous human mental disease

Segolene Royale is offering the Frogs a great earth mother, Marianne
- mother of the nation, Saint Joan of Arc, Madonna on wheels, how on earth can they refuse?
No decent person would be that ungrateful.